In the middle of the countryside, my heart misses home

I was born in the countryside, grew up in the countryside and live in the countryside but still miss my hometown. It is not true that people miss their hometown only when they are far away from home. What makes people miss their hometown the most are memories, familiar images that gradually fade with time or the same old scene but the old people are no longer there.

I remember the sandy village road of my hometown. In the early morning when the sun had just turned my cheeks pink in the East, I woke up sleepily following my mother's call to go to the fields. Oh, the feeling of walking barefoot on the sandy road was so wonderful. The soft, white, smooth, and soft sand grains seemed to melt under my little feet. I loved the feeling of rubbing my feet on the sand so that the sand covered my entire feet, feeling the coolness of the sand seep into my skin. The village road where I used to go to school, herd cows, or follow my mother to the district market every day is now only in my memory. My village now has all the roads concreted and spacious. On both sides of the road, people built houses close together, high fences, closed gates, no more rows of red hibiscus flowers, rows of green tea. People who have been away from home for a long time come back to visit and constantly praise their hometown for being rich and beautiful, but people in the countryside like me feel something empty and lonely.

I remember the village fields behind my house. My hometown is a semi-mountainous area without fields of storks flying straight, endless green rice fields. But that does not mean I do not love the village fields of my mother. Children like us back then, outside of class, spent more time in the fields than at home. The village fields were like a big friend protecting us, nurturing our dreams, and forgiving of our mistakes. Since I was a little kid, my mother carried me to the fields. On one side of the shoulder pole was a basket of rice seeds, on the other side was me. Under the shade of the elm tree, I leisurely played alone, sometimes curled up and fell asleep under the old elm tree. When I was a little older, the village fields were where we played hide-and-seek, jump rope, blind man's bluff, where kites carrying our dreams flew up into the vast sky, out of the village smoke. Sometimes, remembering the old days, I often wandered out to the village fields.

I sat silently, inhaling the strong, humid smell of the soil, the acrid smell of young mud, remembering each dark face, the sunburnt hair of Ti and Teo, remembering the ball made of thorny pandan leaves thrown at people, causing pain, and the cheerful laughter of the countryside afternoon. Now, on the pale afternoons, I waited for a long time, but there was no longer the sound of children calling each other to run out to play, the old games were no longer played by anyone. I sat for a long time by the field, I was silent, the field was also silent, only the sound of the wind rustling and playing with the waves of rice. Occasionally, a few gusts of wind flew into my eyes, making them red and stinging.

I remember my grandmother's thatched cottage with a fragrant garden. The garden that I considered a treasure throughout my childhood, a place I was proud of with my uncle's children in the city every time I returned to my hometown. In the summer, the wind blew in from the fields, cool and refreshing. The wind carried the fragrant scent of the cajuput tree into the afternoon dream of the little girl who was sleeping soundly to my grandmother's lullaby. The scent of ripe guava, ripe jackfruit, ripe chayote and ripe sim permeated the summer afternoon nap. There were also afternoons when I refused to sleep, secretly following my siblings to the back garden to climb the guava tree to pick guava. The guavas were covered with our siblings' fingernail marks to check if the fruit was ripe. And the consequence of those sleepless afternoons was a long scar on my knee from falling from the tree. Every time I looked at the scar, I missed my grandmother, missed the fairy garden so much. I remembered the stone well, the jar placed next to the well, on the mouth of the jar my grandmother always placed a coconut shell. After playing naughty games, we ran to the well, scooped water from the jar to bathe and wash our faces. I remember, also beside that jar, I scooped water ladle by ladle to pour on my grandmother’s hair. While pouring water, I sang “Grandma, Grandma, I love you so much, your hair is white, white as the clouds”. Grandma passed away, the childhood garden was also gone, the well, the jar, the coconut shell also drifted into the past. Only the fragrance from the old garden, the fragrance from the soapberry tree my grandmother used to wash her hair still lingers in me.

I remember the familiar sounds of my childhood. The rooster crowing in the early morning, the calf calling for its mother, the bird tying itself to a pole in the afternoon sky. The cry of “anyone with broken aluminum, plastic, pots or pans to sell” in the hot summer noon reminds me of the days when my mother carried salt to the highlands to sell on her old bicycle to earn money to raise us. Occasionally in my dreams, I still hear the clanging bell at the alley entrance and the cry of “ice cream, ice cream here”. I remember the poor children running out with broken sandals, broken basins, scrap metal, bullet casings that they collected while herding cows to exchange for cool, delicious ice cream.

Not everyone who is far from home misses their hometown. What makes people miss their hometown the most are memories, familiar images that gradually fade over time, or the same old scene but the old people are no longer there. Like me, walking in the middle of the village road, sitting in the middle of the countryside field, I miss the old days so much, I miss the smoke rising from my grandmother's kitchen every morning and evening. Knowing that "tomorrow starts today", my hometown will still change a lot, I just hope that each person still keeps in their heart a place to return to, to remember and love, to want to return when far away, to want to return when happy, to want to return when suffering...

(According to Lam Khue/ tanvanhay.vn)

In the middle of the countryside, my heart misses home